


Objects in Mirror

by fresne



Category: Meso-American Religions & Oral Traditions, Requiem for the Devil, Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Cat1, Gen, MOW, Monster of the Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-22
Updated: 2006-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 22:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A regular case turns a bit outside the boys league as old gods and older demons and angels have tangle in a small Arizona college town. </p><p>Written before season 4 Jossed the plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objects in Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Occurs sometime after Dead in the Water. Vaguely. Since this is a Crossover with a book most of you probably haven't read "Requiem for the Devil" (great book BTW) I suppose there are spoilers for that, although it's all fairly self explanatory.
> 
> The following inspiration for this work and inspiration for my dialogue, where I am not directly quoting, because apt quotes are cool:  
> Borgia Codex  
> Jeri Smith Reddy, Requiem for the Devil

~~~~~~~  
Sunset  
Nuevo Pinyon, Tesla House Graduate Student Housing  
Nobody wants him/He just stares at the world/Planning his vengeance/that he will soon unfurl

Next door, Gerry was playing his stereo on eleven again. "I am Iron Man," growled through the cement wall.

Linda whispered, "Shut up iron man."

She stared out the apartment window at the light show. Green lightening split the purple clouds. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five one thousand, six one thousand, seven one thousand. Boom. One point four miles and cool. Howard leaned against the window next to her and looked out the window.

Linda sneaked a peek at her boyfriend. Rolled the word around in her head. Boyfriend. Friend, who is a boy. Skinny, glasses wearing, Trek quoting boy. Blinking at the lightening. Not that they'd said the words yet. They'd both been burned before. There was plenty of time. She slid her hands along his ribs and bones and started a completely unwarranted tickle attack.

Howard tried a defensive strike, but his Federation skills were no match for her Jedi tickle tricks. Soon she had her skinny little geek pinned to the floor. Weak with laughter. Right where she wanted him. In the dimly lit room, light flashed and boom. That one had been close.

She kissed her geek and felt the rumble of the thunder in her bones. The electrical arc of their lips. Howard might look like Opie, but he had lover boy lips.

The door bell rang. Linda whispered, "Ignore it."

Howard whispered back, "It could be Death Race 4000 - the Revenge. UPS was supposed to deliver it today."

Linda pecked a few more kisses and then rolled off him. Kisses were great, but DR4K had gotten great reviews in PC Gamer. She was going to beat Howard's pants off. Heh, pants off. She poked him. "So, what are you waiting for. Get me a cup of Revenge."

Howard laughed. She propped herself up on the floor and watched his scrawny little ass walk to the door. He opened it, but there was no nice UPS person holding a nice brown box. He bent down and picked up...what the hell. Linda stood up and over to him. Howard was holding an old school Optimus Prime action figure. It was twisted. Halfway transformed between robot and truck. Someone had scratched its sides with a ball point pen and dipped it in, eww, she touched it, some kind of animal blood.

It was sticky.

From Howard's expression, Linda guessed it was another little present from the psycho ex. Last week it had been a half way immolated Sampson figure from Gargoyles. What kind of person would torch a guy's action figures?

Linda said, "Howard, you've got to do something about this. It's getting out of control."

Howard just stared at the figure. "I don't understand why she's doing this."

Linda thought about going into the let me kick the ass of the whacked out bitch speech again, but didn't say anything. Took the figure from Howard and said, "We're going to put Optimus here in a plastic bag and then we're going to call the police." She pushed the door and then put her arm around Howard. Pulled him toward the kitchenette.

The door swung closed, maybe she should have pushed it harder, but her hands had blood on them. But it wasn't like she was worried about the psycho bitch. Bring it on. So the door didn't quite close. Not that it would have mattered. But as a symbol, it was important, or at least the symbols liked to think so.

Outside it began to rain, but Linda didn't notice. She was focused on Howard, who was focused on some inward place. So she didn't notice the rain. So he didn't notice the thunder pounding the sky above. Didn't notice when they swirled in through the door.

There was crash from the kitchenette. Yells drowned by the rain and thunder and thunderous speakers.

Then there was just the rain and the thunder and the last chord of the song died away.

~~~~~~~~  
Weed, California  
But I'll take my time anywhere / Free to speak my mind anywhere / and I'll redefine anywhere / anywhere I roam

A bare light bulb hung by a white extension cord from the chipped and pealing ceiling. The smell of cigarette smoke camped out in the waxy baby animal safari curtains and velvet kitten paintings on the walls. At least the room was clean. Good solid front door. Only a short drop to a back ally out the bathroom window. Looked like that exit had been used a few times before.

Been a good day.

Torched a haunted phonograph last night. That'd been a bitch and a half to figure out. But that was done and bad kareoke singers could now breath easy.

Sucked away the morning researching. Miss Sammy said he had other stuff to do and gave him that look. Fine. Whatever. Jack Lambert was about ready for charge off. At least the free credit check said Sheriff Devins had a decent score. Worth the bother of applying. Dean applied and filled out balance transfers until his eyes crossed and his head felt like rail road spikes were hammering away.

Maxed out the last of Bill Carlton with supplies for the afternoon reward.

Opened up the Impala for a tune-up. His hands still smelled like engine oil. Drained out the old crud and poured in the sweet black bubbling new. Gapped her sparks. Replaced that crimped Ignition wire. Driving around on a bit of copper wire and insulation tape had been making Dean twitchy. Impala deserved better. Plus it was less likely to get them killed.

Dean sat cross legged on one bailing wire twin bed. A faded blue towel over the baby duck bedspread, while he laid out the guns.

Dean splashed No. 9 lubricating oil on a small rag and the room smelled like home. Faded cigarettes and bleach. Oil and gun metal.

Sam sat on the other attack of the springs twin bed. Tapped and clicked on the laptop. Rubbed his neck where last night's playmate had choked him. Again. What was it with ghouls and Sammy's neck?

Sam had that little line of worry between his eyes as he flipped pages in Dad's journal.

The room sounded like home. The buzz of insects trapped in the window and the creaking of springs. Keyboard tapping, paper rustling, the steady rhythm of metal as Dean took their guns apart. Taking things apart. Putting them back together. The world focused down to this moment. This space. This task.

Sam said, "I've found something in last Sunday's Pinyon Post. There's an editorial urging the city council to do something about a string of fatal wild dog attacks in the hills outside of town. A hiker was killed last week. The writer blames urbanization and global warming."

Dean carefully attached the oiled rag to a cleaning rod. "Point Sammy?"

"I'm getting to it. Start small and build. There's a separate article that talks about two SWA grad students, Linda Nieman and Howard McCormick, who were found dead in Howard's apartment." He looked at Dean.

"And that makes this one of our gigs how?" Cover their bases. Play the devil's advocate. Dad taught them that. Dean inserted the rod down the barrel of his Glock. Rapidly slid the rod back and forth. A clean gun was a happy gun.

Sam smiled slowly and paused; waited until his brother looked. As if Dean didn't always have a little focused on his little brother. Dean sighted down the gun barrel. Gleaming. He said, "Sammy, waiting for the punch line here."

Somewhere under his washme bangs, Sam's forehead got all wrinkled and earnest. Sam said, "All the authorities ever find are bones. Even the students were picked completely clean."

"Completely?" Dean glanced over at his brother and began to reassemble the Glock. Nice and easy. He could rush it, slam the pieces into place, but he liked to do it steady. Feel the smooth metal and worn wood in his hands. Feel the rhythm of the movements. Oil and rub and snap and click. Next.

"Completely," said Sam. Sam looked washed out in the harsh light. Tired.

Dean rubbed a soft cotton cloth down the double barrels of the shotgun. "That's some wild dog problem. Could be a curse." Dean didn't like the feel of the Beretta lately. So he gave it some extra love. "Stumble into the wrong spot, pick up something you shouldn't, and...hey," Dean grinned suddenly, "remember that mummy in El Paso. Walked about zero miles an hour. Tough bastard though. It took us hours to hack it apart."

Sam rubbed his throat again. "Don't remind me. I had a Physics exam the next morning."

Which as Dean recalled, Sam had aced. His pool game was still crap though.

Dean snapped a chamber into place and let it spin. Inhaled the smell of oil and metal. Listened to Sam click and scroll. Felt the next job settle down his spine like a compass needle, pointing the way to go. "Does the Pinyon Post - you'd think they'd stop to think before naming these things - have anything useful to say?"

Sam said, "There isn't much else."

Dean glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eyes. Sam's eyes were hollowed out. Focused in and down on the monitor. Dean said, "Could be a Mummy or our good friend Chupacabra."

Sam stopped typing. "You think it could be a Chupacabra? In an apartment!"

"No. I just like saying Chupacabra. Chu-pa-cabra." Dean smacked his lips. "Makes me hungry. Think Taco Hell's still open?"

Sam worried at his hair and said, "I looked through Dad's journal, but other than some notes I can't read, there's not much to go on."

Dean shrugged. "We'll head down. Do some research. Do some co-eds. There's this trick I've been wanting to try in a hot tub." Dean was rewarded with a grimace from Sam, a bit of lurking smile. Good. Took him long enough. Chupacabra! Dean added, "One thing's for sure. This time, no costumes."

~~~~~~  
Nuevo Pinyon - Tesla House Graduate Student Housing  
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show / To move, but doth, if th' other do / And though it in the centre sit, / Yet, when the other far doth roam, / It leans, and hearkens after it

Sam tried to look like he belonged, while Dean quickly picked the rather pathetic lock on the door to Howard McCormick's apartment.

Weird to be in what amounted to a dorm while wearing a suit. Like something was out of phase. That something being him. But it was easier to play at cop when looking the part. Glanced at his brother. Dean's suit was wrinkled, like it'd been rolled up in a Ziploc bag. Which it had. Wrinkled and out of phase. Sam wondered what it would be like to just not care.

They ducked under the police tape and they were in.

Howard's room was decorated in early student. Tiny. Cramped. Stuffed with electronic toys. The obligatory Einstein and other geek posters on the walls. Dean picked up some sort of transistor. Sam said, "Dean, we're not here to shop."

Dean put the thing in his coat pocket. "I can use it to boost the pickup on the EMF." Dean nodded at a full length Mr. Spock poster taped to the wall. "Howard would'a wanted me to have it."

Sam shook his head. What was the point.

He began looking for something out of the ordinary. Other than the marked outlines on the floor. Sam looked out the window at the quad outside. There were students tossing around a hacky sack. Reading books. Strolling with turtle like backpacks slung off one shoulder.

Dean walked around for a few minutes with the EMF, but the room was clean. Clean being a relative term. There were piles of clothes everywhere. It already seemed strange to think of owning that many shirts, piled like trash on the floor.

Dean said, "I think the only Twilight Zone thing in this room is the mold in the mini frig. Linda's place is probably a bust too, but we should check it off." Dean waved at the door. "Lead on MacDuffy."

Sam walked to the door and tried leave like he belonged there. "It's lay on MacDuff."

Dean compressed his lips. "It's a saying?"

Sam couldn't tell if Dean was jerking his chain or not. Clueless or obnoxious older brother were remarkably similar. Sam said, "Linda's apartment was just upstairs."

Dean held open the stairwell fire door for Sam. "As I said, lay it on."

They climbed the heavy cement stairs. Bare cinder blocks and metal rails. The San Quentin style of student dorm architecture.

They came out in a corkboard and violently flyered hallway. Sam knocked on the door to Room 403. Looked at Dean. Glanced at himself. Maybe the roommate wasn't home. She never going to buy this. Dean pulled a radioactive yellow flyer off the wall and stuffed it in his pocket. "Hmmm, pool hall." He looked at Sam. "We're getting a little short on cash."

The door opened, and Sam tried to think normal, confident thoughts.

A studious looking woman, wearing a faded UC Irvine sweatshirt, stood carefully behind the door. Weight poised to slam it shut. Ramona Simons, Linda's roommate, according to the police reports. She glanced at both of them and almost whispered, "Um...Hello. Can I help you?"

Dean flashed a badge at her. "Good afternoon ma'am. I'm Detective Dimmock and this is Detective Shields."

Sam flashed his own badge. Tried to push non-threatening-normal-just-doin'-my-job into his eyes. Yeah. Right. "Are you Ramona Simons?"

"Uh, yeah." Ramona pushed on the nose piece of her wire rim glasses. She moved slightly away from the door and let it swing open. Sam concentrated on being just a couple a bored cops. Normal. Boring. Smile. Ramona smiled faintly back. She said, "Um...what's this about?"

Dean glanced through the open door. There was a yellow 'Do Not Cross' police line tacked to the ceiling. He smirked. "Looks like you're a bit of a police groupie?"

Ramona glanced back at the ceiling. "Oh, that. Yeah, we had a 'Come as Your Favorite Mutant' party first week of the quarter. Um. We...yeah, we...uh, had this whole story planned if anyone asked about it, but no one did." Ramona chewed on her lower lip. "Is this about Linda?"

"Yes, ma'am." Sam wrote something random on a little notepad. Dean insisted you could go anywhere if you had a notepad and pretended you knew where you were going. Sam wasn't sure why he had to carry the notebook. "We just have a few questions. May we come in?"

"Uh, yeah, I, uh, yeah Linda had the bedroom." Ramona waved at the room behind her. "She was letting me crash here. My scholarship...well, it was cheaper." She stepped back and they walked into a room furnished in late student. Much taped copies of Klimpt's The Kiss and "Kthulu for President: Why Vote for the Lesser Evil" posters on the cement walls. Purple and green dining hall milk crates full of books. The remains of a pallet serving as table. White Christmas tree lights wrapped around a wilted paper palm tree.

Ramona said, "It's all been such a shock. I mean, I keep expecting her to walk through the door and tell me that it's all just a joke. But," She rubbed her eyes under glasses. "I don't even know how someone could do this. Do you know something new?"

Sam made another gibberish note in his notebook. "It's just a routine follow-up to cases of, um, malfeasance." Dean snorted. Sam ignored him. "Is it okay if my partner takes a look at Linda's effects?"

Ramona pushed at her glasses. Much harder and they'd be over her eyebrows or broken. "Yeah. I, sure. I mean, God, I've known Linda for a couple of years." She made a flat, pale reflection of a smile at Sam, "My living here wasn't even official or anything. I feel like a horrible person. I keep thinking about housing and, how am I going to pay for next semester. I think I might be in violation of the housing rules. And that's just stupid. My friend is dead."

Dean shot Sam a look. Worrying about housing costs and rules didn't really come into Dean's world. Just get a new credit card and move on. Dean said, "Don't tell 'em. They probably won't move anyone in here for awhile. Because of Linda." Dean shrugged. "I don't really know. Ask my partner. He's got loads of advice." Great. Thanks. Way to throw him under the bus. Dean continued, "Where was Linda's stuff?" Throw him under the bus and bail.

Ramona took a deep breath and said, "Sorry about that. Um." She pointed at a closed door. "That was Linda's room over there."

Dean nodded briefly and opened the door. Sam moved slightly to the left, so Ramona would have her back to the open door. Sam said, "Ma'am. There's nothing wrong with worrying about how you're going to handle going on. Having someone close to you die like that can affect you in all sorts of ways."

Ramona sighed. "You've gotta be my age. Call me Ramona. So, what are your questions. I want you to catch the sicko Bastard."

Sam looked down at his notepad. He wanted to offer Ramona more advice. Tell her it was all going to be okay. Go over scholarship websites and work study programs and; he asked the next question. "Ramona, do you know if Linda had recently come into possession of any sort of antiques or artifacts?"

Ramona shook her head no, "No, Linda was hard core Computer Science. If it didn't happen tomorrow, then she kinda didn't care. She was just so alive. If she wasn't studying, she was always going out and doing things. Got good grades. She'd just started dating someone."

Sam made a few more notes. "That would be Howard McCormick?"

"Yeah." Ramona looked around the room distractedly. Sam moved a little to bring her focus back onto him while Dean looked through Linda's closet. Ramona said, "I didn't know him that well. He seemed nice. I mean." Ramona crossed her arms, "It wasn't super serious yet. He'd just gotten out of a relationship with some psycho chick. But he was cool. Bit of a geek, but I guess..." Ramona held herself a little tighter, white fingered. "I'm sorry, it's just all so horrible."

Sam put his hand on her shoulder, just a light touch. Ramona looked two steps from cracking and Sam felt so finger in the dam tired. He said, "Take your time. You're still in shock."

Ramona took a deep breath. "Yeah." Another breath. "Okay."

Sam put a little extra glow into his smile. Not enough to be flirting. Just warm. "Did Linda or Howard seem worried about anything?"

"Um, no." Ramona glanced up at the police line on the ceiling. "You know it's funny. Its been up there for weeks, but I feel like it's the first time I've noticed it. I suppose I should take it down now." She started throwing books out one of the milk crates.

"Here. Let me." Sam reached up. Grabbed the plastic line and gave it a quick yank. It floated to the floor. Ramona tried another cracked winter smile. Sam said, "This next question may sound a little odd, but it's all standard procedure. Do you know if Linda or Howard were getting into any non-traditional religious activities? Witchcraft? Seances? Maybe a magic ritual out in the desert?" Sam spread his hands out a little. "Exploring?"

Ramona pushed her glasses up her nose. "No, like I said, if it wasn't here and now, Linda didn't care. She thought all that kinda stuff was a waste of time."

Over Ramona's shoulder, Sam could see Dean standing in the door to Linda's room. Dean shook his head.

Sam flipped back the pages on his notebook and said, "That's everything. Like I said, this is just a routine follow-up. I'm sorry if we stirred things up for you."

Dean said, "Ma'am, thanks for your time," and went to the door.

Ramona stood in the center of the room, her arms folded, glasses reflecting the light of the fluorescents. The police line curled around her feet in a yellow line across the floor. She said, "Oh, okay. Um...goodbye."

Sam closed the door behind him and after a moment, he heard the lock click.

Dean said, "Damn. Man, I thought she was going to go critical on us." Dean started back down the stairwell and said, "I looked all over that room. There were lots of text books and plenty of short dresses. There wasn't even mutant mold. Whatever killed her, she didn't bring it home with her."

Sam looked out the stairwell window. The sun was setting. Another day.

Dean opened the door and headed out of the building. "So, Dude, when you were at Stanford, how did you pay for it. I know you weren't scamming credit cards." Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder and looked him in the eyes, "You know, if you had sell yourself for money. I'd understand." Dean held the moment and then starting laughing. "Dude, the look on your face."

"Yeah, nice Dean. Real nice," said Sam. "The University library will be open until late. We should research the pattern on the other attacks."

They cut across the quad towards where the car was parked. Dean said, "Yeah, that definitely sounds like more fun that beer, sorority girls, and pool. Come on Sammy. Live a little."

Sam put his hands in pockets. He said, "Dude we drove 27 hours to get here. I'll be lucky if I don't fall asleep in the stacks." Remembered how the other side of his first year in college. Two pennies to rub together. Scrambling for work study and student loans.

Dean smiled at some women jogging the opposite direction down the path. "Life's short. Enjoy it."

"By watching you hustle some poor college student out of their rent money." Sam's eyes felt gritty. He could still feel the road, like it'd been dremeled into his skin. He just wanted to sit still. He wanted black coffee. He wanted to be alone for awhile. If just for a few minutes.

"Yeah. I can see you're going to be a barrel of fun." Dean unlocked the car door and it creaked as he got in.

Sam got in the car. Listened to it cough to life like a cancer victim. Stared out the window as they went back to tonight's flamboyant fleabag to change into their other skins.

~~~~~~  
The Happy Piñata Pool Hall and Lounge  
I don't know where I'm going / But, I sure know where I've been / Hanging on the promises / In songs of yesterday

The air was practically a black lung. Musky tobacco and sweet cloves, and here and there, the faint college town smell of weed.

Fat, happy college students clustered around pool tables. Laughing and chugging beer. Slamming down shots and devouring toxic nachos. Stumbling off to the john to start it all over again.

Dean stood by the bar. Swallowed his first beer of the evening. Scanned the crowd for his mark.

They were almost out of cash and pulling too much money from the credit cards tripped fraud checks. They needed food. Gas. Needed to pay for their motel. They needed cash. More cards. More fuel to keep running forward.

All part of the job. Dean focused on here and now and the moment. There plenty of kids with lots of ready money to burn from their moms and dads.

In a dark corner, Dean spotted a fresh faced guy talking with a white wannabe dreadlocked. A little package of something changed hands. A little money.

Dean smiled. Practically his civic duty. He started to make his way over to Fresh Face's corner of darkness.

Wannabe dreadlocked went back to his pod of his friends. Fresh Face paid for a pool table and looked around the room. Their eyes met in the dim.

Dean leaned against the slick wood of the table and said, "Hey. Kinda crowded tonight. Mind if I join in? No fun playing by yourself."

Fresh Face smiled a little. "Sure. I'm Bob Carvahlo and I'm all about the friendly." Bob pulled a roll of greenbacks out of his pocket and said, "Mind if we put a little wager on things to keep it interesting? Say forty?"

The punk kid was trying to scam him. Good. Dean smiled all country boy shark. "Ozzie Winchester. I was about to suggest the same thing."

Bob stared at Dean for a moment, like he was looking through him. Then he laughed. Slammed back his beer. "Cool. Winchester, like the Mystery House. Your stairways run into walls too?" Bob bounced around the table to the pool cues. "I was getting bored." Bob rubbed his chalk against the tip of his cue stick. "Usually by this point of the evening, my tongue's halfway down the throat of a drunk girl who can't remember her name, but the slut pool's a little shallow tonight." Bob slid his fingers along the length of his pool cue. "I love to break things. Do you mind?" Bob actually tried to look innocent, all big eyed and rabbity. Sammy had him beat cold. When he was five.

Dean leaned against his own rented cue and said, "Hmm, but I love to break things too."

Bob pulled a quarter out of his pocket. "We could flip for it."

"Only if I do the flipping," said Dean, as he held out his hand.

Bob tried another big eyed puppy look, which was sort of destroyed by his shit-eating grin. "What don't you trust me?"

Dean didn't bother to answer. Just looked at Bob, while holding out his hand. Dean loved college bars. Kids talked shit, not had their buddy hit you in the head with a beer bottle from behind, which could be fun too. But right now, he was working.

Bob gave another last shot with the pathetic lost velvet child look and then started to laugh like he was possessed. By the ghost of Christmas Past. Jolly old bastard. Wiping his eyes, Bob said, "Man this is so awesome. This never happens to me." Bob slugged back some more beer and then waved to a roving waitress. "Hey Leslie, two more beers."

"It's Lurleen," said the waitress.

"Lurleen." Bob handed her the quarter, "Flip this."

"Tails," said Dean.

"Mostly," said Bob, "Although heads're good too."

Lurleen rolled a ton of mascara over her eyes and flipped the quarter. Heads. Bob grinned at Dean and then proceeded to play the most amazing game of pool that Dean had ever seen in a lifetime of hanging out in seedy dives of scum, villainy, and the suspicious. Bob never missed. Sank multiple balls with one play. Bob made shots that shouldn't have been humanly possible, which given he spent the entire game slamming back beer, chattering about his philosophy of life and general badassness, and bouncing around like a rubber ball; not human was a definite possibility. Never hurt to be sure.

Dean handed Bob some twenties from his stash. Looked him in the eyes and said, "Kristos."

Bob put the money in a jeans pocket and laughed like all three ghosts of Christmas, even the kickass future one, were somewhere in there, wrastling around. "What, dude, the landscape artist? God dammit it. Jesus H. Christus. And the Holy Mother-Fucking Ghost. Lou would be shitting bricks about now. Always hated it when I took our 'Holy Father's' name in vain." Bob leaned against his pool cue. "Lou always was caught up in who he thought he was supposed to be."

"Lou?" It had been worth a try. Kid could have an amulet somewhere, but he was probably just some sort of pool hall rain-man. It happened. Better if Bob won the first game anyway. Get a taste for the win. Get sloppy. Drunk.

Bob downed three fast hard swallows of beer. He said, "Lou's my brother. Never would let me be taller than him. Not even once."

Drunker. Then again, rain-boy might have been getting into his own stash. His eyes were certainly an amazing shade of red. Course, that could just be the acid air. Dean said, "Another game? Double the stakes? I'll break."

"Sure. This'-es fun." Bob looked away. Flashed Dean a grin. "I'm bad, cuz that's who I am, n' I like it." Blah, blah, yeah, bad. Got it. Must be why Bob kept talking about it. Bob finished his beer. He held up a hand for the waitress and ordered some more beers. "So, Ozzie Walls, you got a brother?"

Dean looked at Bob. Considered his line of patter. His audience. Who is Whatsmyname today. "Yeah, Younger brother." Dean held the cue lightly in his hands and stared at the table. Slid the wood fast and hard through his fingers and crack. Even with the crappy rented pool cue, it was a good break.

Bob took a baseball cap out of some baggy ass pocket or another and started to fiddle with it. "You'd let your little brother be taller than you wouldn't you?"

Dean drank some beer. Considered his options. "Not like I have much choice." Best not to say too much. Never knew when it'd come back to bite you in the butt. "Other than knee capping. One in the side corner pocket."

"When he had knees." Bob tilted his head and watched Dean line his shot. Lines of force and trajectory and spin. Bob said, "You know I pulled my brother from a lake of fire once."

"Yeah?" Dean looked up at Bob. He had this weird ass grin on his face. Dean made his stroke with the cue and another one down.

"Yeah. Right after Dad kicked us out of the uh, house. Lou and our Father had a difference of opinion. So, we took off." Bob leaned his head against his cue stick. "Better to reign in hell and that kinda shit. So, how about you?"

Weird, but Dean was a tougher nut than that. Bob could get all emo-shary if he wanted. "What heaven or hell? I don't know. Eternal torture, lots of hot chicks. Tough call." Dean stretched out over the table and thwack and another one dropped and fell. Take that and cry in your beer with it.

Or, okay, Bob had somehow acquired a tequila shot, which he threw back with a, "Woo Yeah!" Bob shook his head. "Want one?"

Why not. A little lubrication kept the world going. "Bring it on." Dean stroked another ball down and kissed his next shot into place. Bob gave their order to Lurleen. Bob leaned over and whispered in Lurleen's ear. She gave him a nuclear look and stomped off.

"Down in flames. What'd you say?" Dean leaned out over the table, rap, tap and the ball spun out across the green just like he'd known it would. Slapped against the side of pool table and flew back across to put another one down the hole.

Bob shrugged. "I said that I wished I were her, so I could have sex with me."

Dean narrowed his eyes and looked over the balls at play. "That has to be the worst line ever." There were a couple of easy shots, but they'd screw things later. Who said he didn't plan for the future. He went with the bridge shot.

"Yeah, but if a chick goes for it, it'll be an enthusiastic night." Bob started tapping his cue against the floor and started humming something boybandish.

Whatever. Dean denied the existence of pop and light rock. "True, but you pissed off the waitress."

Bob shrugged. "I have amazing powers of alcohol." A new waitress, college bar battle hardened came over with their order. "See."

Bob held out a shot to Dean. This was a stupid idea.

All the more reason to do it. Dean threw it back in his mouth and fire seared a trail down his throat. Warmed his stomach. "Tasty." Dean cracked off another shot, just to show he could. Straight and pretty and true.

Bob slid into Dean's space. Dean gave him a look. An inch closer and Bob was getting a pool cue where the sun don't shine. Bob grinned. "Dude, I can't believe that you're trying to hustle me. This is so cool. Most people are all..." he waved his hand in the air, "stuff, tied up in who they think they should be, instead of who they are."

Dean lined up the eight ball and down. He grinned. "Game. Another round?"

Bob handed Dean his own twenties back, plus. "You're thinkin', um, that cuz I've been drinking that my games gunna suck. But it won't. Cuz I know what I am."

Dean racked the balls and smiled a big molasses smile. "Then break."

Bob chuckled, "I was just going to fuck with you, but now. Dude." He sighed, "I miss my brother. We argued. N' haven't seen him in years."

Dean leaned against the table, just a good old boy, and ordered more tequila. Practically his civic duty.

~~~~~~~  
Kresge Library  
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? / Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

The tiny newsprint in the microfiche machine wavered and blurred. Sam narrowed his eyes and glared the words into focus. Outside the high particle board walls of the research station, students were listening to head sets, watching monitors, being students.

The light was dim in the Audio Visual room. All the better to hear them clicking and rewinding and whispering broken phrases in bad French, the words to some latest love song.

There new songs in the world. Jess had died and people kept writing songs. Sam wondered if he'd ever hear them or if he'd live forever in the music of his childhood.

Sam made another note in his notepad. By now it was full of notes. Sometimes, Sam had a hard time imagining a twenty year quest that resulted in single notebook. Cryptic words cramped on sparse pages.

Sam wondered if Dean was still playing pool. Felt a little edge of resentment that he was always the one that had to do the research; while Dean went off and did whatever. Even though that was stupid and kinda not true and this was his idea and he could have gone with Dean. Even though there were those fast obliterating years of away. Even though the only one making him do this was him. Sam resented even his own resentment. Felt cranky and crappy and unfit for anything. An angry octagon in a circular world. Dean probably didn't even care that he was an octagon. If he knew what an octagon was.

Man. Sam felt ugly in his own skin.

He made another dot on the survey map he'd bought earlier at the school store. He'd been through the last fifty years of newspapers. Marked every attack since the town was founded. The dots didn't form a shape or a symbol. The few scattered attacks happened mostly North of town. Linda and Howard were the first people killed in city limits. It didn't make sense. Things that go bump in the night behaved according to a pattern if you could figure it out.

If you could see it.

If.

Sam rubbed his eyes. Caught himself in a yawn that nearly dislocated his jaw. Leaned forward to stare at his map. Head propped in his hand. Closed his eyes for just a moment and breathed in.

"Hello." said a voice. "Tell me if you've heard this one."

Sam about fell out of his chair. He hadn't been asleep had he? He blinked until his eyes focused on a mild looking young man in his early twenties. Ratty brown coat. Baggy pants. "Um, what," said Sam. There was no one else in the room.

The young man said, "Don't worry, you weren't snoring. Just breathing loudly." The young man, whose badge read R. Azariah, clicked off the light on the microfiche. "Anyway, there were these Thai monks and they were visiting a monastery in Santa Fe. Buddhist monks, because, you know, most Thai are mostly Buddhist. Friendly people. Smile a lot. Anyway, one morning while bowling, that's begging for food, not throwing bowling balls, although that'd be funny. Anyway, that morning they came across these people with brightly colored hair standing in the parking lot of a 7'11."

Sam wiped his face. Damn. Drool. Sam wondered how to head off the flood tide of words. "Okay."

Azariah picked up a scattered stack of language DVDs and put them away in their case. "The 7'11 isn't really important. So, the monks said, 'Hello, we are Thai monks.' and the strangely dressed people said, 'Hey, we're Santa Fe Punks.' And the monks talked with the punks about walking the middle path, and;" Azariah peered at Sam like he was nearsighted, but not wearing his glasses, "you're not really ready for this story yet are you? You really do need to be awake for it."

Sam looked at Azariah and wondered what he was supposed to say. His mouth felt dry and tacky. Like he'd eaten glue.

Azariah put a stack of magazines in a recycling bin decorated with a hand painted sign, 'recycling is good karma.' Azariah said, "There's a coffee shop right off the library. Shifts over. I was just heading down there. I can show you where it is. You look like you could use a cup. Or three." Azariah chortled.

Sam said, "Yeah." Huh, chortled. It was the only word for it. In a lifetime of new schools and unfriendly faces, this guy might be the jolliest person Sam had ever met. Sam was kind of afraid to even ask his first name. He'd be flooded with jolly. Although, his bad mood from earlier had ebbed some. Sam wiped the sleep crystals from his eyes. "That's probably a good idea." Sam shoved his stack of papers in his backpack and stretched. Stood up and blinked some more. Yawned.

"That's some interesting research." Azariah locked up a stack of DVDs in a metal cabinet. "I took a look while you were breathing heavily."

Sam tried to shake off the sleep fog in his head. "Yeah, um, I was looking at some local folklore."

Azariah chuckled, as a break from the chortling. Coffee was a really good idea. Azariah said, "Looked like you're taking on our mystery cloud of death." Azariah made a vague mysterious cloud of death gesture involving waggling fingers, flapping wrists, and some small helicoptering motion of his arms. It was pretty funny.

"Cloud?" Sam tried not to seem too desperate. Just eagerly interested in a term paper or something. Okay, desperate. Tired. Coffee please.

"Hey beanpole, closing up here." Azariah stood by the door. "We can talk on the way out to coffee. It feels like I haven't had coffee in seven times seven years. Which reminds me, how many Existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

"Uh, forty-nine," said Sam. He followed Azariah out the door. After the relative darkness, the main library was bright. A confusing maze of stacks and tables and stairs.

"How can we know that there is a light bulb?" said Azariah, as he flipped through an enormous brass ring of keys. "Key to Eden, the gate sticks. Key to Purgatory, aka the break room. Key to the gates of Dis, aka my brother's house. Ah, here we go." Azariah locked the door.

"So you were saying about a cloud?" Sam followed Azariah as he meandered through the stacks and down a wrought iron staircase.

"Oh, so there's this local legend." On the landing, a middle aged woman was struggling with a wire trolley weighed down with cleaning supplies. Azariah said, "Ah, Rosa, mi corazone. Don't tell me, the ascensor's c'est capute again."

Rosa said, "Si." and a flood of words tumbling in an apocalyptic Grapes of Wrath sort of way..

Azariah briefly replied in a soft cascade of words. He turned to Sam and said, "I've volunteered us to carry the cart downstairs. It's on our way. Rosa needs to put this away or she can't go home."

Sam wondered why me, but couldn't maintain his grump. They picked up the cart and started down the stairs. Azariah proceeded to tell a long complicated story, in both Spanish and English, and possibly German, about Jesus and Satan having a programming contest. The jist of which was that Jesus saves. "Get it." Azariah craned his neck back, "Jesus saves"

Sam didn't want to smile. It was a terrible joke. He kept waiting for an opening to ask about the 'cloud,' found himself chuckling for no reason. Next thing you knew he'd be chortling. And then a door to hell would open up and really it was best to avoid those kinds of thoughts. Way Sam's life went, it just might.

At the base of the stairs, Rosa gave Sam a pink bucket, decorated with a Virgin Mary sticker, and a bottle of disinfectant, because young men could always use cleaning supplies. Which, okay, what was he supposed to do with a pink bucket?

Sam followed Azariah and carried the bucket. He said, "So, you were going to say about the cloud?"

Azariah cut between stacks 542-596 and 597-601. "Oh, yeah, local legend. Students love to scare each other with it. You know, the bump next to Fallher plaza is a dead man. Tunnels connecting Poly Sci and the Admin building. The hall of faces in Hell Hole cave. That kind of thing. Anyway," Azariah darted off to a table. "Sahar! Still downing in Dante I see."

A thin dark skinned boy in jeans and t-shirt looked up from his surrounding stack of books. "I'm trapped in the Malebolge." Sahar looked at Sam. "Hell sucks."

Azariah picked up one of the books and idly leafed through it. "Well, where will and power are one," he put a piece of paper in between the pages, "you'll find your way through. Say, have you heard the one about the three cranes and the gambling goat?"

Sahar hadn't and Sam did and in the middle of the story, Sam realized that he'd hit the Schmu hour. The telephone book was now hilarious.

As Azariah wrapped up his story, they all said, "And the goat went gambol, gambol down the green, green hill." Heh, schmu Azariah waved goodbye to Sahar and darted through another maze of stacks.

Azariah said, "So, anyway, out somewhere North of town is a remnant of an Indian village. Not much of anything. A few mud bricks and a trash heap. Anthropology professor's do love their trash. Well, I suppose technically other people's trash. However, students and conquistador's, having a great deal in common, love to tell stories about gold in them thar hills. Sometimes its a city of gold. Sometimes stolen gold."

Sam followed Azariah out across a vast dark faux marble lobby. "And the gold is supposed to be cursed?""

"And comes with a free topping of a mysterious dark cloud, which people sometimes spot descending in the general direction of the unlucky victim. The cloud is also cursed and always seems to show up with a thunderstorm. Or was that frogurt? Sodium benzoate?" Azariah waved at a stream of students headed out the front door. Ducked down a poster slicked corridor instead. "Is this the end of zombie Shakespeare? Doth cried the Raven Lenore." A young woman, wearing some sort of a headscarf, was standing in a glass doorway at the end of the hall. Azariah said to her, "Still kicking chemo's posterior with your affordable boots I see."

"Only with the help of your famous brownies." Lenore had coffee. There was coffee. She said, "Salute. And well, met Raph's good looking friend to whom he has not introduced me." She winked at Azariah, "Shocking. Just shocking."

"Since he's yet to introduce himself to me, I shouldn't introduce him to you. It would be gauche. Plus downright uncanny." Azariah pointed at the door. "Sluggo's Coffee my good son. And remember, believe in the light bulb. Lenore, as it dark and stormy, please give me the pleasure of escorting you to your bus."

"Why thank you kind sir." Lenore took Azariah's arm. With a smile and wave, they were gone.

It after was midnight on a Thursday night. Sluggo's was packed with students. Sam resisted the call of the chocolate covered espresso beans. That way led insomnia and paranoia.

Looked up at the vast menu of coffee options and decided that there was no reason in the world he shouldn't get some sleep.

Left without buying anything. Went to go turn the light bulb off.

~~~~~~~  
Dawn  
Arroyo Estates, Nuevo Pinyon  
Ellen Montoya  
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, / Because their words had forked no lightning they / Do not go gentle into that good night.

The morning couldn't decide if it wanted to be dark and stormy or just tease Ellen Montoya's bougainvillea vines with a flirtation of rain. All flashy lighting and big bicep thunder with not a bit of follow through. Kind of like her ex.  
Oh, was that bitchy? Good.

Though, tease or not, the non-storm was a lot more interesting than the bleeding meanderance of thesi plaguing her desk and gushing red marks like a Biblical plague.

Blah.

Clearly she'd been looking at papers too long. She was starting to think in overwrought sentences.

Normally, this was the sort of grunt work that TAs were minted out to grade, but...yes...well. She wasn't going to think about that. She could deal with that on Monday and, slash with her red pen, my that was an In-ter-esting paragraph. Slash. Slash. Slash.

She stared absently out the window of her bungalow. She stared at the pre-Columbian pottery arranged under glow lights on her oh so IKEA shelves. She looked at anything that wasn't a paper.

Focus.

She gripped her pen and read several more pages. Red several more pages. Slash. Slash. Slash.

The early morning storm continued to be all bluster and thunder. No pitter patter of little rain drops.

Ellen's head was pounding the beat, beat, beat of the tom toms. Head against the wall. She set her red pen free and massaged her right hand.

If there weren't the whole die from electrocution thing, she'd go for a swim before breakfast.

Maybe she'd have a fruit smoothie. Her blender thought she'd forgotten it. Around paper twenty, her blender had stopped calling to her and started weeping softly. Okay, seriously, she'd been grading far too long. Weeping blenders?

That was it, no more Ms. Nice Professor. Monday, she was going to have a good long talk about responsibility with Bob, king of asshole frat boys, and Cyndi, feel my pain. She needed some real TAs. Ones that showed up to study section. Ones that graded papers and tests. Ones that looked up at her as a mentor. As a demi-god. Not whined about stress or beer burped the Carmina Burana. Well, okay, that had been pretty funny, which didn't mean that she wanted to grade the papers for Bob's study section.

She'd worked hard to get where she was. She had tenure. She'd been on digs in Nicaragua. She'd faced down men with guns while holding a tooth brush. She'd been interviewed by the History channel. Twice. She...was declaiming to herself, which was a sure sign that it was time for sugar.

She was slicing a lime when the doorbell rang. It was always the way. She licked a drip of honey and ran to the door. Ellen peered through the peep hole. No one there, but, thinking positively, she had signed up for some Band Candy from Maria down the street. Maybe it was a short school girl bearing chocolate. Could be.

Ellen swung open the door. Not Maria. No chocolate.

There was a burning ceramic pot of, she crouched down and looked at it, water and gasoline. Ellen laughed. Well, at least someone was paying attention in class. There were even some fairly accurate symbols painted on the side of the pot. She leaned out her front door and called out, "You know, that's clever enough to get ten extra credit points on your paper." She looked around at the empty street. "But not if I have to put it out Myself."

The street remained dark and empty and dry. Ellen shook her head and went to get her fire extinguisher.

She'd have closed the door if she'd been thinking about it. Woman living alone and all that. But she wanted food. Wanted a smoothie. Wanted at least one paper that implied that her students weren't all stoned. That they cared. That she was getting through to someone.

So, she didn't close the door.

It was a dark and almost stormy morning. A fluttering cloud detached from the sky and swirled through the open door. Outside it began to rain. Outside, lightening cracked the sky and thunder boomed.

Inside, Ellen began to scream.

After a few minutes, the only sound was the rain thundering on the pavement and her front door creaking back and forth in the breeze.

A figure overwhelmed by a glossy black raincoat darted forward to reclaim the ceramic pot.

~~~~~~~~  
Kokopelli Motel – Vacancy  
Let those who are in favour with their stars / Of public honour and proud titles boast, / Then happy I, that love and am beloved / Where I may not remove nor be removed.

Sam stretched.

He felt, carefully good. The last traces of the early morning thunderstorm had faded away. He'd pulled back the Kokopelli curtains. Between scudding clouds, sunshine was streaming in. Bright and clear. The dust wiped clean. Maybe his glass wasn't half full, but it wasn't half empty.

Dean's bed hadn't been slept in. Obviously he'd had a good evening. Maybe he was a gamboling goat. Sam snickered to himself. Sam had an odd image of Dean grabbing the glass, drinking it down and ordering another glass, maybe with a side of fries.

Chuckling, chortling, snickering, and feeling, no, actually good, he went back to his papers spread across his bed in a vain attempt to hide the Kokopelli bedspread.

Although, there was nothing he could do about the matching Kokopelli shaped table lamp and ceiling lamp, the Kokopelli wall paper, and the Kokopelli partying their way across the hand painted headboards.

Dean really did have the most amazing ability to pick hotels. Like a homing instinct for kitch. Kitchdar? Maybe Dean'd built a kitchometer into the car from the scattered electronics parts arranged on the Kokopelli legged table.

Be just like him. He was always taking things apart and building whatsits when they were kids. Lips sticking out. Hunched over the internal organs of some thrift store household item. Dean should of been a technician riding to the rescue or a mechanic like Dad was. Before.

Shoulda. Coulda. It was a beautiful day and Sam wasn't ready to let go of sunshine with moldy thoughts.

The Kokopelli painted door opened and Dean came in bearing breakfast, wearing yesterday's clothes and sunglasses. Looking hung over and satisfied with himself.

Dean smiled at Sam. Sam smiled back.

Dean handed Sam a cherry Danish and a cup of coffee, proving there was good in the world. "Thanks," Sam mumbled around a sugar saturated cherry.

Dean took off his sunglasses and closed the curtains. "So, find out anything last night between naps?"

"Mmm, yeah." Sam swallowed his bite. "Most of the bodies have been found North of town near the site of an Indian village. And according to local lore, there's some sorta black cloud that's protecting buried treasure or something."

"Huh." said Dean. "While I was getting our breakfast, I ran into some officers of law getting their morning sugar. They were more than happy to talk shop with a fellow officer on vacation."

Sam put his coffee cup down. "Please tell me you got something."

Dean sat at the table and smiled around his bear claw. "I got something." Dean swallowed some coffee. "Another body was found this morning in her home. She was an anthropology professor at SWA."

Sam swallowed his coffee. "That makes sense. Maybe the professor picked up something she shouldn't have and instead of hikers dying, the curse has moved into town."

"Worth a look." Dean held up a piece of paper. "I got the professor's address."

Sam bit into his Danish. Patterns if you could see them.

Hopefully not Kokopelli patterns.

~~~~~  
Arroyo Estates, Nuevo Pinyon, Arizona  
Sometimes I sleep, sometimes it's not for days / And people I meet always go their separate ways / Sometimes you tell the day by the bottle that you drink / And times when you're all alone all you do is think

Dean's felt like a family of ferrets had held a party in his mouth last night. Earlier the rain cleaned air had pounded spikes through his eyeballs, but thankfully the clouds were rolling back in. He hurt in muscles he didn't normally know he had.

Worth it.

That wannabe rebel had played some amazing games, even half plastered on tequila, and Dean had still taken him to the cleaners. And somewhere after that had been this chick. Seriously into yoga. She'd done things Dean'd a thought took five people and a trapeze. Mmm…trapeze. He'd woken up in the Impala feeling seriously impaired and richer by three weeks of funds.

Good times.

They were back in the suits and looking pretty wrinkled. Time to hit a dry cleaner again. There was tree sap and blood on Sam's coat. Don't piss off the dryads. Dean said, "We could have just worn our real clothes."

Sam said, "I'd rather not get arrested dude. This way, if anyone's hanging around, we're just here to follow up on the investigation."

Dean twitched. "Whatever grandma." Sam looked good this morning. Bright eyed. Research agreed with him.

Sam bumped into Dean and pushed him off the curb. "Jerk."

Dean shoved Sam's arm. "Bitch." Dean looked down the street. No one in sight. Just dead end suburbs and cactuses sprouting flowers.

Sam shoved Dean back. "Asshole."

"Bastard." The air felt fresh.

Sam kicked a rock. "Clouted canker-blossom."

Dean snorted, "What?"

Sam smiled a happy I know something you don't know smile, "It's Shakespeare. Read a book dude. He's got some great insults."

"Okay, Mr. Handy." Dean started up the steps of Professor Montoya's house. There was a girl, nine years old tops, standing on the porch. Sawing at a bougainvillea vine with a kitchen knife. He said, "Um...hey there. Whatcha doing?" Something was off in this picture. School uniform, but clearly, not in school.

The girl blinked at them. "Hi." She dropped her hand. Hid the knife in the pleats of her long black skirt.

Sam said, "Um, we're here to follow up on the investigation." He looked up and around and down again. Dude. Sammy had about a dozen tells.

Dean shook his head. "Cank, she doesn't care. I'm Dean and," he jerked his chin at Sam, "this is Sammy."

Sam sighed, "It's Sam."

Dean winked at the girl, just to stay in practice. "Bout now, sounds like it's butt monkey."

The girl's black hair was going everywhere in the wind. She said, "You shouldn't oughta call people names."

Dean shrugged. "I do lots of stuff I shouldn't do." He pulled his Leatherman out of his back pocket. Nice and slow. Cut a thorny vine covered in purple flowers. Cleaned the blade on Sam's sleeve, which got him a mock glare from his brother and a giggle from the girl, before putting it away. A clean blade is a happy blade. Dean held out the vine to the girl, but didn't come any closer to her.

She looked at him. Dark eyes measuring. She darted forward and took the flowers. Kept the hand with the knife hidden in her skirts. Hidden, but ready. Good girl. World was full of predators. Demons made sense. People, you could just never tell.

"Oooh. Candy." said Dean. There were several chocolate bars arranged next to the front door in a little pile.

"Don't!" said the little girl. She laid the flowers on the candy. "They're hers. Ms. Montoya's. She bought them. I thought. I thought that..."

"You know the...Ms. Montoya really well?" said Dean.

The girl shrugged. "She bought some candy." A sad smile buzzed static across the girl's face. "She showed me how to write my name in Aztec pictures. She was cool. And...something bad happened to her." The girl looked down and to the side. The cops this morning said it was a little girl who found the professor. Poor kid. Made him want to give her a better knife. That kitchen knife looked dull.

Sam said, "Were you around this morning?" Oh, yeah, Dean hadn't mentioned that part had he.

The girl began to edge back toward the stairs.

Dean shrugged. "Don't pay attention to my brother. He's a cank."

"Clouted canker-blossom." said Sam.

"See even he says it." Dean backed away a little bit, to give the girl more space.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Hey." But there wasn't much juice in it.

The girl stopped edging away. Smiled somewhere deep down. It was in her eyes more than anything.

"We look into this kinda thing." said Dean. "Make sure it doesn't happen again."

The girl chewed on the end of a chunk of hair. Her forehead wrinkled and she said, "Does this happen lots?"

Dean glanced at Sam, who was losing his cherry Danish shine. Dean said, "It happens. Sucks doesn't it?"

The girl nodded. "I told the other cops earlier, but I don't think they believed me." she pushed her hair back behind her ears."

Dean put his hands in his pockets. "Most people are stupid."

She smiled a little, "Yeah." Swayed forward a little on her toes. Said, "I was sitting in the front window, eating my breakfast, watching the lightening. And I saw someone put something on the Professor's porch But I thought it was something good. Like a package."

She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. Held it in her fist. Hidden. "And then it was like a cloud kinda flew down the street to her house." The girl sort of fluttered her hands. One hand in a fist. The other clutching a kitchen knife. She was holding the knife right. Good. She said, "It started to rain. So, I went to get my coat. And then, I wanted to leave her candy, but...so....the door was open." She opened her fist, "I thought if someone left something bad, I should leave something good."

She was holding a battered arrow head. The kind you buy for twenty-five cents at a rest stop named Apache Jamboree or the Peach Pit. "Ms. Mendoza liked old things."

Sam smiled his weight of the world smile and said, "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

The girl nodded, eyes down. Suddenly shy. She put the arrow head on the pile and dashed back down the steps. Stood on the street a moment and waved at them. Smiled. Ran away home.

~~~~~~  
Professor Mendoza's House  
Each man's death diminishes me, / For I am involved in mankind. / Therefore, send not to know /For whom the bell tolls, /It tolls for thee.

 

Professor Mendoza's collection of ceramics was impressive, but there wasn't a single burial urn or grave trinket in the bunch. The stack of papers on her desk were a sad commentary on the American education system, but other than telling Sam that Professor Mendoza was covering Aztec religion, they didn't say much.

Sam sighed and went back to looking at the outline of a human being on the kitchen floor. There was half a dried out lime on the counter and a sad little honey bear laying on its side, oozing honey onto the floor. There was an open container of milk on the counter. It smelled like it was going bad.

The air in the house had that smell. Empty and just a little rotten. Like a thousand other houses they'd broken into over the years. Like the house knew that its owner was dead and gone. It probably did. Violent deaths left a psychic residue. Wounds. Scars. One more thing to not think about. Sam felt the last of his sugar rush fade away, leaving that only that flat feeling.

Dean's little strung together EMF meter squawked.

Sam said, "Getting anything?"

Dean shook his head and slapped the side of the EMF. "If you don't count the ghost of Top 40, no."

"Maybe you shouldn't have used a walkman." Dean flipped him off and walked down the hallway. It was actually pretty impressive that the thing worked at all. Not that he'd ever tell Dean that. Dean'd hold it over Sam's head for the rest of their lives. Plus, Sam hadn't forgotten what Dean had done with Sam's Goodwill Speak and Spell. Sure it had been faster than a ouija board, but some things just weren't right, and then there was the part where it blew up.

A glint of something on the floor caught his eye. He knelt down. There, like some prehistoric creature trapped in amber, a black butterfly was caught in a pool of honey. Sam looked around the kitchen and picked up a white dish towel and a pair of tongs. He carefully pulled the butterfly out of the honey with the tongs. The wings clinked against the metal. They seemed to be made of some kind of stone. Hard and brittle. Sam knew how that felt.

He spread out the butterfly on the dish towel. It had a tiny cat's head and tiny claws made of stone.

Dean came around the counter. "I got nothing dude."

"Dean. Look at this." Sam waved the tongs in the direction of the butterfly.

Dean reached out to touch a wing and quickly pulled back his hand. Shook fat drops of blood on the ceramic tiles. "Sonofabitch." Dean sucked on the cut.

"I said look, not touch," said Sam. "Its made of some kind of stone or glass. I think it may be obsidian. Look at these patterns. They're carved into the wings."

"Huh." said Dean. He leaned over, "You one fugly butterfly."

Sam stared down at it. At just one more way in which their lives were just so screwed up. He wiped down Dean's blood with a disposal wipe from the container next to the sink. An adult's kitchen with those house proud touches. Clean. Lemon fresh with desiccated limes. He said, "I've never seen anything like it."

Dean smiled. "Gotta love this gig. See something new every day."

The twenty-seven hour drive to get here and the stale coffee and the gleaming kitchen and the bloody outline on the floor. The smell of it all. Sam felt like he was suffocating. "What? Driving from cannibalistic Wendigos to cursed suburbs with pit stops in mutant butterflies. Everything on hold so we can drive every day to something new. And we're no closer to finding what killed mom, what killed Jess, than when we started. It's all so," The butterfly moved.

Sam grabbed it with the tongs. The butterfly began to growl at them. It was almost cute, but a week ago it ate part of someone. Sam looked at Dean.

Dean came around the counter and opened the refrigerator. He pulled out a mayonnaise jar, which he quickly rinsed out in the sink.

Sam put the butterfly in the jar and spun the lid closed. It fluttered and growled and battered itself against the glass.

Dean said, "Like I said, you fugly." Dean gave Sam one of those looks, big brother casual. Sometimes Sam wondered how Dean did so well at poker. Dean said, "I've been all over. Whatever summoned fugly here, it wasn't in the house. Any theories?"

Sam breathed in and out. Repression your name is Winchester. "We know there's been a break in the pattern of attacks. I was thinking that the professor stumbled into something. But the girl said she saw someone leave something on the front porch. Probably some sort of talisman to summon them. The carvings in the wings look like some kind of Meso American design. Aztec, Toltec, maybe Mayan."

"Then we're probably looking for a human. A shaman or some idiot with a text book." Dean made a face. "You know 'Nothing bad ever came from reading a book' and all that."

"That would explain why the pattern changed." Sam shook his head. "We should visit the professor's office. See if her TAs know anything."

Dean picked up the jar and gave it a shake. The butterfly hissed. "Come on Junior."

Sam frowned. "Dean, we can't call it Junior."

Dean glanced back as he opened the front door. "Well, I was going to call it Sammy, but I thought you might cry."

Sam took the jar. "Jerk."

Dean ran down the front steps. "Cloudy canker-flower."

Sam closed the front door. If only it were that easy. He followed Dean to the car.

~~~~~  
SW Arizona State  
So close no matter how far / Couldn't be much more from the heart / Forever trusting who we are / And nothing else matters

They parked in hell and gone and walked up a path through a rocky ravine to get to campus. The sky was had gotten cloudy. Muggy. As long as it didn't hail, Dean didn't care. Hail was a bitch on a paint job.

Students were streaming out of the Social Science Building. Sam and Dean swam in against the laughing, shouting tide.

They walked by classrooms full of people caged in little wooden desks. Couldn't talk or move or do. The sickly smell of white boards and dusty chalk and jumbled up didn't matter thoughts. He said, "Hey, Sammy, I see college has its rewards." Dean smiled at a hottie walking down the hallway. He said to her, "Can you tell me where Professor Montoya's office is?"

Chick pointed to a map down the hall and disappeared into the stream. You really shouldn't cross the streams. Whatever. Now is the only thing that's real.

The Professor's office door was open. Tiny. Walls clustered with beehives of shelved books. There was a stick thin intense chick sifting through papers on the desk; while, crap, Bob was sitting tilted back in a chair throwing paper clips at a ceramic pot covered in black symbols. Looking at Bob, you'd never know he'd drowned seas of alcohol. He looked Dennis the Menace clear eyed and pink cheeked.

Dean said, "Hey, Bob." Had he mentioned Sam's name? The details got fuzzy after the third shot. Course the roll of cash in his pocket was what mattered. Mostly when facing the guy he'd out scammed. "Small world."

Bob let his chair fall to the ground with a thump. "Hey bitch, I love that ride." Okay, so Bob, not big on grudges. Bob continued, "One year, we snuck into Disneyland after hours and rearranged all the figures so they were all going at it. Put strap-ons on all the little Dutch girls. Had the little British boys going all Kama Sutra with the little Indian boys and girls, that kind of shit. It was great. "

Dean's experience with a Small World had been...not that. Gremlins getting a little personal with maintenance staff. Dean turned to Sam. "Bob and I played pool the last night."

"Oh." said Sam.

Oh. Whatthefuck? Oh. How did he think Dean paid for breakfast this morning? Oh. Fine.

Dean walked forward and held out his hand to the intense chick, "Hi, I'm Ozzie and this is my brother Sam." Good view of the window. Always control the entry points to a room. Always.

Nice view down her shirt too.

Intense chick eyed his hand like he was some sort of toe fungus. "Hello." She shook his hand limply and let go right away. Hello awkward. Jump in any time Sammy.

Sam said, "We were working with Professor Montoya on an project and we heard about what happened..."

Bob looked at Dean. Looked at Sam. Said, "You weren't kidding about taller. Cool." Bob bounced in his chair. "Cyndi n' I were Montoya's TAs. That's Cyndi with a y and i. Even her name's messed up." Bob picked up an eraser and began to stab it with the paperclips. "In that right Cyn?"

Cyndi glared at Bob. Looked at Dean. Dude, Betty Davis eyes in a freaky, actually Betty Davis was pretty freaky. She said, "Why are you here?"

Cindy was wearing something on a gold chain. It looked, Cindy glared at him and straightened her shirt. He said, "Professor Mendoza was going over some notes for Sam here, and he'd hate to loose them. Maybe we could look around, see if they're here."

Bob began to molest a Kachina figurine with his tentacled paperclip eraser. He was muttering, "Oh, hente. Oh, hente." It was kinda funny. Sammy was giving Bob that look. Right then. Ignoring Bob.

Cyndi crossed her arms. "I don't know how Mendoza could've helped you. It's not like she'd done anything interesting in years."

Sam started to lay on the puppy dog charm. "You know how it is." Did the little head tilt. "Actually, I've been trying to remember, what her latest project was."

Bob said, "She was doing a study on types of woven baskets or some shit like that." Bob stopped molesting the figurine and started throwing the eraser against the ceiling tiles. "Poked around the Yavapai village site."

Cyndi's shifted a little back in her chair. Good. Dropped her arms. Dean angled over a bit. Now take a deep breath. She said, "So what did you say Mendoza was helping you with?"

Sam cleared his throat. "My project is on um, the ah, reductive recurrence of obsidian butterflies in native folklore associated with the, ah, determine meanings of recursive symbols." Way to go Sam.

Sam pulled out a drawing. "Something like this." He held it out to Cyndi. She didn't glance at it. There was a just a slight narrowing of her eyes.

She took a deep breath. Yeah. That's what he thought.

Bob leaned forward. He said, "Dude, you draw like a five year old." He picked up the paper. "I don't know. This kinda looks kinda familiar." He grinned at Cyndi. "Weren't you looking at something like that in the whatsit, Lucretia Codex at the beginning of the quarter? " And confirmation from the peanut gallery. Either Dean had seen Pirates of the Caribbean one too many times, not possible, or that was some cursed Aztec gold that Cyndi was wearing.

Cyndi said, "I don't know what you're talking about. Don't you have a study section?" If looks could kill, Bob would have been extra crispy.

Bob was made of more fire proof stuff. "Yeah." Bob tossed the eraser one last time at the ceiling. The paper clips embedded in the ceiling and it clung like a pink spider. "Sucks to. Now that the profs dead, I'll have-ta grade their papers. Like I've read the book or something." He slouched to his feet and headed out the door. "Later."

Cyndi's lips got razor thin. "I've got a lot of work to do."

Dean glanced at Sam and nodded towards the door. Dean said, "We'll come back later." Dean grabbed Sam's drawing and went out the door. He glanced back and forth down the hall.

Bob was already gone.

Whatever. Sam could track down this Lucretia codex thing.

Dean walked down the hallway. "Dude, did you see what Cyndi was wearing?"

"A really tight shirt." Sam pushed out the front door. "Man, I thought you were going to start drooling on her."

"Actually, I meant her big freaking gold medallion. Pervert. The one with stamped with the image that looks like this." Dean waved Sam's drawing at him.

Sam said, "It could just be a coincidence."

"She was hiding something." Dean said, "You're the research monkey." Dean smiled at a passing girl in a pleated skirt. "You figure out just what junior is and how to take out his little friends and I'll check out the connection between mixed up Cyndi and Linda n' Howard."

Sam looked stick up his butt grumpy.

Dean tried to think of something stupid to say to cheer him up, but really wasn't in the mood. So, they walked on.

~~~~~  
Sluggo's Coffee  
On a long and lonesome highway, east of omaha. / You can listen to the engine moaning out it's one lone song / you can think about woman, or the girl you knew the night before, /But your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do.

Place was packed with students. Entry point was crap. Big long narrow hallway. One entire wall was windows looking out over the square outside. Place'd be the first to go in a zombie attack. At least everyone would die well caffeinated. There were about a zillion choices.

Dean glanced over at where Sammy was camped out at a tiny table, his back to the windows. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. His coffee was probably even cold.

Dean ordered some coffee with a funky name for himself and a half calf decaf vanilla something coffee for Sammy. He was starving, so he got some blueberry muffins. Dean hoped they were less healthy than the little 'All Natural Sign' seemed to say they were.

Dean walked over to where Sammy was sitting with the coffee and muffins.

He smiled at the chick at the next table as he walked around. She had on this tight little t-shirt that said, "Good kitty gone bad." and she definitely had something under the hood. She smiled at him and looked away. Glanced back again. Dean smiled at her. Never hurt to do some ground work. Life's fast and then you're somewhere else.

Sam was scowling at the laptop. Muttering. Took the coffee. Almost took a sip and then put it down without drinking anything. Scowled some more. Typed and clicked, click, click. Dean said, "You've been at that for a while. Got anything on Junior?"

"I've tried every combination of search terms I can think of." Sam was taking this a little personally. Sam said, "I've tried Lucretia Codex. Cat headed butterflies. Aztec Lucretia obsidian. Stone butterflies. Obsidian butterflies. All I'm getting are Laurel Hamilton links."

Dean shook his head. "So, what you're saying is you've lost your mojo college boy, while I am still just full of mojo."

Sam didn't bite. He got that look that said Google would be his bitch. "I'm sure if I just keep trying, I'll find it."

The woman looked at Dean again. Chewed on her rather nice lower lip. Wrote something on a piece of paper and stood up. Excellent. He liked it when they gave him their number without asking. Showed enthusiasm. Dean liked enthusiasm. And flexibility. Enthusiasm and flexibility.

She walked over to them. She smiled kinda good kitty shy. She said, "Umm...I wouldn't normally do this, but...um here."

Sam rolled his eyes and said, "Dean I don't believe you."

Dean looked at the paper. It wasn't a phone number. Unless her parents were really cruel, it wasn't her name.

She said, "Umm...I couldn't help but overhear your conversation and your friend's been, um, muttering.." She stuck her hands in her pockets. "And well, the word you're looking for is Mixlitpoca. And the Aztec butterflies have a jaguar head, not a cat head."

Sam just stared at her. Dean kicked him under the table and said, "Thanks. I don't know how much you overheard, but my brother and I, we're just talking."

The woman shook her head, "It doesn't matter. I uh...the only reason I know is I'm writing a novel and, I've been doing some research. Well, umm, actually, if you don't mind wading through Elizabeth quotes and bits about 16th century artillery, I could just send you my notes." she shrugged in a really nice way. Good kitty. Bad kitty. Send me your email.

Sam said, "Um, thanks." and clearly too much thinking was going on.

Dean said, "Yeah. Thanks. That'd be great."

The chick laughed, "Seriously, I wouldn't do this normally but...whatever. What's your email address?"

The universe was working the way it was supposed to. Dean scribbled his address on a scrap of paper and handed it to her.

She smiled and went back to her computer, clicked a few things and then called over, "I sent it. You should get it in a moment." Then, she packed up her stuff. Waved and left the cafe.

Sam said, "Okay, that was weird."

Dean spun the computer around and logged into his email. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we're sitting in one of a half dozen internet cafes on campus and we sit next to the one person who has exactly the information we need. Don't you find that suspicious?" Great. Sammy had that sitcom family lecture look. Blah, blah. Normal dad's don't teach their sons to throw knives; they play catch. Blah, blah. Problems should be solved in twenty minutes. Blah. Blah. Boring.

"Uh, no." Dean refreshed the screen for incoming mail. " If we walk up to a house, the neighbor will be standing there waiting to give us the town dirt. If we call one of Dad's contacts, then that's exactly the guy we should have called. And if we sit in an internet cafe, the person who sits next to us will not only know the information we need, but will send it to us in 38 bulleted pages. With a table of contents and a list of references." Dean shook his head. "And I thought you were anal." Dean tabbed down the document.

Going, going, "But it's not normal. That's not the way the world works."

"Whatever dude. That pretty much is how our world works. That was a coincidence. A really hot coincidence. But when a chick is wearing a gold medallion with an Aztec symbol on it, that's not a coincidence. Ask around, you, meaning me, find that she used to date Howard, was getting flaky in all her classes, and has been going on to her friends about getting back at everyone through some sort of Aztec curse voodoo." Dean paused and looked at Sam. Dean said, "Wow Dean that was amazing. How did you find all that out?" He picked up his muffin. "Mojo. Pure mojo. Like this muffin." Dean took a bite of blueberry goodness. "Dean gave up tabbing and did a Find for Mix.

"Oh." Sam's face wrinkled on itself. "So, Cyndi."

"Looks like." Dean scrolled down the page and said, "Get a load of this. The Mixtitpocys are the spirits of Aztec warriors that were dishonored on the battlefield. Some sort of out of balance thing." Sam came around to stand behind Dean. Cool. Distraction achieved. "After death, their spirits became these jaguar butterfly things in the service of the demon goddess Itz-pap-a-lot-l to protect her treasure." He looked at the scanned images in the document. "Huh, ugly mama. Bet she was fun at parties."

Sam tilted the computer away from Dean and tabbed down. Sam held up the drawing of Junior next to the monitor. He said, "Interesting. They can be summoned by using certain symbols, and by mixing things that are opposites. Fire and water. The earth of a cave in a mountain in the air." Sammy tabbed some more and reached the next section.

Apparently there was a horrible earthquake in China in 1556 and Queen Liz had been one sarcastic bitch, but there wasn't anything on how to lay the little Mixis to rest. Course, there was always the formatted Appendix at the end of the doc. Maybe, he could set Sammy up with this chick. Do him some good to get laid.

Dean said, "What I don't get is where the Aztecs are coming from? Thought their crap mostly showed up around Mexico City." Drank some more of his coffee. Whatever the hell syrup stuff they put in it was pretty tasty. Not that he would ever admit to it.

Sammy's face cleared. Lecture mode achieved. Sam loved showing off his big brain. Sam said, "When the conquistadors got here, there were all sorts of legends about cities of gold in the north. It's not all that far fetched to think that an Aztec army got up to something around here. Got their butts handed to them by the locals. Or they were the locals. Ended up these insect things protecting treasure sacred to Itzpapalotl." Show off. He wasn't even looking at the word. Sam said, "We should check out that village. Wherever they're coming from, its somewhere around there." Sam started writing down the names of the reference books.

"Finally!" Dean felt itchy and antsy. Past time to go shoot something. Take things apart, so stuff could be put back together again.

Sam closed the computer. "We still don't know how to kill these things."

"Blessed explosives? Junior looks pretty brittle." Dean leaned back in his chair. "Real question is what are we going to do about Cyndi?"

"We can't do anything. She's a person." said Sam.

Yeah, they hadn't had This conversation a billion times. "Dude, she's killing people."

"We don't know that for sure." Sam started shoving stuff into his pack. Fast sharp movements. "We should go talk to her.

"What did you get hit with the stupid stick this week," said Dean. "It's not like she's just going to admit to it. Maybe we should just call the police. Hey, this psycho chick's siccing mutant butterflies on people who piss her off. Give her ten to twenty.

"That gold piece she's wearing, it must be from Itzpapalotl's treasure store. Everyone who's died before probably got too close and were attacked. Cyndi's figured out how to use it to control the Mixlitpoca."

"And you think she's just going to hand it over." His all natural muffin was sitting like a blueberry lump in his stomach. "Sure. Why not. Let's go talk to the crazy chick."

~~~~  
SW Arizona State  
For never-resting time leads summer on /To hideous winter and confounds him there; /Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, / Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:

The sky was cloudy again. Weird for this late after the Southwest monsoon season. Then again, the hurricanes were up into Greeks this year. Maybe it was all global warming after all. The habitats of Abominable Snowmen cast adrift when their chunks of ice broke off. Urban sprawl creeping up on violent butterflies and red cap mounds. Maybe he was thinking to avoid thinking.

They were getting to know their way around campus. Past Fallher Plaza, round the huh, Hoover tower. It felt strange to be familiar with a campus that wasn't Stanford. It seemed so long ago. It seemed like yesterday.

A crowd of students swirled by them. A blond girl bumped into Sam and for a moment, his heart skipped a beat. But she wasn't and he wasn't and that's all there was to it.

Professor Montoya's office door was closed, but the light was on. Sam could hear voices. Cyndi was yelling, "This is all your fault." It sounded like Bob said something muffled in response.

Sam looked at Dean, who shrugged non-committally. Opened the door and walked in. Dean said, "We're back. The door was unlocked."

Bob was leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. "That's my cue to leave." He wrinkled his nose like a rabbit. He said, "Seriously, I never do this, but remember Winchester, be who you are."

Cyndi said, "Bob! I swear if you tell them anything."

"Tell us what?" said Dean.

Bob punched Dean in the shoulder. "Yeah, bitch, you got your freebie." Bob looked at Cyndi. Wrinkled his nose like a really, really pissed off homicidal rabbit. He said, "Bub bye." and walked out to of the room.

Cyndi looked bad. Not undead bad, but really unhealthy. She said, "I don't have to tell you anything."

Sam tried to smile soothingly. He said, "My brother noticed your medallion when we were here earlier. I was wondering if I could take a look at it."

Dean mouthed the word smooth and picked up a ceramic pot on the wall and sniffed it, said, "Huh."  
Sam ignored him.

Cyndi held her hand over her heart. The medallion. "You know don't you?"

"Yeah. We brought you something," said Dean. He pulled the mayonnaise jar out of the backpack and put it on the desk. "Look familiar?" The Mixlitpoca hissed at Cyndi.

Cyndi said something low and guttural and opened the jar. The Mixlitpoca fluttered out of the jar and landed on her hand. Cyndi idly stroked its back.

Sam said, "Why are you doing this?" Sam leaned forward across the desk. In that moment, it felt like if she would just answer the question, things would click into place. If there could be a why for any of it.

"It's all Bob's fault." She kept petting the Mixlitpoca. "I only meant to scare Howard."

"And the Professor. She dump you too?" said Dean.

Sam closed his eyes. Dean!

Cyndi said, "She was going to fail me. Bitch." Cyndi lifted her hand and crooned to the snarling butterfly, "Failed her."

"So, basically you're on the crazy train." said Dean. "This is stupid," He stepped forward, reached across the desk and gave the chain around Cyndi's neck a quick yank. It didn't break.

Cyndi stepped back. "Ow!" The Mixlitpoca floated into the air. Circled around Cyndi's head, growling. She said, "I don't believe you did that."

"Huh." said Dean. "Nice sturdy chain you got there."

Cyndi felt the back of her neck and looked at her hand. There was a faint smear of blood on her fingers. "I'm bleeding. You cut me. Bastard. You're going to be So sorry."

Cyndi started to scream, "Help."

Outside the door there was the sound of running feet. Great two guys. Not students. Screaming girl. Bunch of deaths around campus. Great.

Dean swung the window open and slid into the window sill. He said, "Quit screwing around Sammy. Come on."

The door opened. Sam jumped out the window after his brother. There was a brief scramble before they melted into the herds of students heading to their cars.

When the reached the car, Dean looked at Sam over the hood. He said, "Dude that was sad. So now what?"

Sam said, "Something's been bugging me for the last couple of days." Patterns. Coincidences. Sam said, " I think I have an idea."

~~~~~  
The desert  
11:00 p.m.  
Dean  
Take a look to the sky just before you die / It is the last time he will / Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky

Cloudy night. City lights back that'a way. They couldn't see for shit. Sort of a goat trail leading up the mountain, but with their dinky little flashlights, it looked like any other break in the scrub.

They struggled up the rocky hillside, scattering shale and lizards. The air had that smell the desert gets after rain. The wind was picking up and it smelled damp. Green. Given the whole rain, get devoured pattern going on here, Dean wanted to get to the dead creatures part of the plan.

He glanced back down towards the village dig site, now just a faint grid of glow lights and black.

Dean's feet slipped on the loose rocks and he fell on his butt, but he managed to not fall on his pack.

Sam spun around at the noise and fell face forward. Dean shone his light at Sammy.

Sam's face was covered in yellow-brown dust. "Dangerous dirt." said Dean. They both laughed. Dean said, "If you bring up finding the trail, I swear, I'll throw you down the mountain."

Sam said, "Yes kemo sabe." They continued climbing.

Rocks. Dirt. Scrub. Carefully put one boot in front of the other and followed the wavering line of the mountain trail towards the cave mouth that Sam's survey map said overlooked the village.

It started to sprinkle. The landscape briefly lit in black and white, sharp shadows against every bush. The cave entrance was still high above. In the distance, there was a rumble of thunder.

They climbed faster. The sprinkles turned into rain. They were getting soaked. Fabric sticking to the skin of his arms and legs. Cold water dripping down his spine.

In the dark, time seemed like it was taking forever. Broken only by flashes of lightening and nearing thunder.

The bushes rustled. Dean just knew they were filled with snakes and rats and bugs. His legs itched. Give him a basilisk over a snake any day. Dean started humming For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Sam laughed.

They kept climbing.

As they reached the cave mouth, Dean's flashlight shone on something pink and purple laying on its side in the entrance. He said, "I don't believe it."

Sam said, "Huh, something that's in between."

Dean picked a plastic pony with purple wings. Drawn on its sides with a felt pen were the Mixi's rounded symbols. Dean said, "Guess Mixi's not picky. Gotta say, I'm disappointed. You hear Aztecs and you figure it'll be all ripped out hearts, not my Little Pegasus Pony."

Sam took it from Dean for a closer look. "Dude, how do you know its My Little Pony?"

Dean shown his light in Sam's face. "How do you?"

They smirked at each other, their teeth glowing in a brief flash of lightening.

Dean pulled his shotgun out of it's plastic bag. Tapped his flashlight around the barrels. Tried to tell himself the cave was full of monsters and creatures and not one single rattlesnake. There was a dry rustling sound from deeper in the cave. Let it be Mixi and not bats.

They dropped to the cave floor and a bunch of something flew out the cave entrance over them. Dean pointed the shotgun up, but it was too hard to tell. Whatever it was flew too fast.

When it was clear, they stood up and started walking into the cave. Wasn't hard to tell which way to go. At every branch of the cave, there was some half assed plastic toy or other thing marked with symbols. Blood. Both. Though, the toy centaur from Clash of the Titans was pretty cool.

Cave went left and right and round and up and down. It was getting hot. Steamy. Came round a bend and fresh rocky rubble lay scattered on the cave floor. Revealing a narrow crack in the rock. A rope dropped down into the dark. Dean pointed his light down. The flashlight glittered off something um, glittery. A big ass ugly statue of that Itzy demon thing squatted in the middle of a piles of some seriously cursed treasure. From what he could see, Mixis were hanging from every surface in the cave.

"Ladies first," said Dean.

Sam said, "Ha." or something equally lame and climbed down the rope.

Once in, Dean could see that the cave itself was pretty cool. The walls were covered in these tubes of dripping rock. They looked slick and smooth. He reached out to touch one.

Sam said, "Dean don't."

"What? Why?" Dean pulled back his hand. "Does it have something to do with Mixi?"

"Uh, no. It's just your hands have bacteria on them. This is probably a pristine environment. It'll cause all sorts of damage to the cave."

Dean looked at Sam, all serious. "Dude you are such a freak. You do remember the second half of the plan right?"

"Yeah. Forget I said anything." said Sam. Sam looked at his watch. "Now for the fun part."

Dean sighed. He hated waiting.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, at Alpha Omega House  
Rebel souls / Deserters we are called / Chose a gun and threw away the sun

The doorbell rang screamed.

The screaming doorbell had been Bob's idea. Most of the cool ideas at Alpha Omega were.

No one got up to answer the door. Lazy assholes.

They were at one of the good parts of Caligula and three fourths of the way through a bottle of tequila. Everyone was in togas. Life should have been pretty sweet.

Bob was bored, bored, bored.

The doorbell rang again. Bob looked over his frat of minions. Wannabe assholes and would be date rape captains of non-industry.

Bored. Bored. Bored.

Bob walked over to the door and tried to enjoyed the feeling of his bare feet on the floor, but he could hardly feel it.

He opened the door. There was a wooden flying pig, splattered in blood and covered in Mixlitpoca symbols, in the doorway. Bob shook his head. "Cyndi, you have got to be fucking shitting me." He licked one of his fingers. It wasn't even human blood. Pathetic.

He walked back into the t.v. room. He said, "Since you're all about to die, I'm drinking the last of the tequila. Actually, I would've done that anyway."

Some Nimrod in the back of the room said, "What?" The Mixlitpoca flew into the room. It was pretty funny the way the Mixi's practically slammed on the breaks when they saw him, while all these guys in togas started rolling off couches in a drunken keystone cop sort of way. Bob said, "Oh, don't worry. I'm not going to kill you or anything. I've just got a few things to wrap up and I'm blowing town."

He tossed the pig to the nimrod. Bob said, "Oh, wait, now I remember, I'm a liar." There was a sharp pop, and Alpha Omega burst into flames. "Oops," said Bob. "My bad."

He walked outside into the rain. He tilted his face up to the rain and listened to the sounds of screaming from inside the frat. Wasn't quite as good as the doorbell. The acoustics were terrible.

"You bastard." Cyndi appeared out of somewhere and hit him with a wimpy ass stick. It broke, of course. Dumbass. She kept ranting on about this all being his fault or something and trying to hit him with the broken stick. He'd have been insulted if he'd been paying attention.

"Yeah, bitch. Kinda not." said Bob. He grabbed Cyndi's bony shoulders. "Personally, I thought if I showed you how to find the cave, you'd suck up to the professor, tell everyone, and start a cursed gold rush. But no, you had to start randomly whacking people."

"Don't touch me," Cyndi kicked at him.

"Oh, please," Bob rolled his eyes, "I'd rather saw off my dick with a plastic knife." He flicked his fingers against her forehead and walked away from the burnt smudge of what used to be Cyndi, whistling Stairway to Heaven.

 

~~~~~~  
Still in the cave  
Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow, / Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe; /Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, /  
To linger out a purposed overthrow.

Halfway between sunset and sunrise, as middle of the night as Sam could figure with his battered Farmer's Almanac, Sam said, "It's time."

"Good." said Dean. He pulled the pink bucket out of his back pack and started filling it with holy water. He dumped in the fish that they'd bought earlier. He said, "So, why am I carrying the pink bucket?"

"No reason." said Sam. He put Libra candles, marked in felt pen with Aztec symbols, in a wide circle around the treasure. The Mixlitpocas were starting to fall off their perches and fly around the cavern. Their wings sparkled. "Dean hurry up."

"I am." said Dean. He opened a jar and let real butterflies out into the cave. A bird just been practical. Sam had the earthworms covered. There was plenty of those.

There. Transitional things. But right now, this moment, things that were what they were. A fish in water. Butterflies in flight. Worms in the earth and fire, well, the candles would have to do. Halfway between sunset and sunrise. They could take a chance on waiting until mid-day.

The Mixlitpoca were moving faster now. Right and left in the thin beams of light. In the soft light of the candles.

Sam felt tiny bodies brushing against him in the dark. Something scratched his ankle.

Dean said, "Hurry up Sam." Yeah. Yeah. Sam pulled out a piece of paper and held up his flashlight. What air Sam could see was churning with Mixlitpoca. There was another bite on his leg.

Sam recited the tongue twisted words of a Nuahatl prayer for balance and transition from the Borgia Codex. You could find what you were looking for when you knew what was going on.

Sam read faltering mispronounced words of this had better work words, while Dean pointed his light up and away into the moving mass around them. Sharp wings sliced at Sam's skin. The things were everywhere.

The cavern boomed as Dean let off a shot with the shotgun and they backed off for a moment, then swirled back forward. Faster. Thousands of tiny cutting wings and teeth. Low growling noises echoing off the cave walls.

Sam tried not to read faster. He just needed to read done.

Then he was and everything sort of paused.

There was a clattering of stone on stone as the Mixlitpoca fell. Thank God. Sam had been ready to move on to Ecclesiastes if that hadn't worked. At least he knew Latin.

Sam looked at Dean. There were red scratches on his face. They were alive. Dean walked with loud crunches over to his back pack and pulled out the second half of their plan.

Dynamite and a really long primer cord. The gold was still cursed.

Dean said, "I've been saving this for a rainy day." He ground another Mixlitpoca under his boot.

Sam said, "Come on," and began the climb back out of the cave.

Wow, Dean had been planning for a seriously rainy day. That was a lot of chord.

They got to the cave entrance. It had stopped raining. The moon was out.

Sam said, "Jerk."

Dean said, "Cank."

The lit the chord and took off running down the moonlit hillside.

Halfway down, the earth shook under their feet with a distant echo of thunder.

They ran some more.

It was a beautiful night.

 

~~~~~~~  
Dawn Diner  
Girl I'm hot blooded, check it and see / I got a fever of 103 / Come on baby, do you do more then dance /I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded

 

Bob sat in the diner and ordered a steak, well done. He snarled at it. It was still pink. He wanted it burnt to a crisp. He wanted char. His toga was filthy. Not filthy enough. He wanted to wallow in filth. Eat some kittens and maybe a baby duck. Be really fucking demonic. Dammit.

Someone spun around the table, tripped and fell to the floor. "Quick, who am I? I've fallen and I can't get up." Raphael stood up. "Get it? Get it?" Raphael's cheerful round face leaned towards him. "It's you." Raphael sat down opposite him. "So, Bub how are you today, or is it Beelze right now?"

Bob, Bub, Beelzebub, Lord of Flies and stuff, said, "Raphael, it wasn't funny the first nine billion times you told that joke to every single one of us. It's not funny now. I am so not in the mood." Bob looked over at his angelic brother's ratty brown coat, "Or are you going by Azariah today? You hear to kick my ass? Again."

"That's more Michael's gig. He's big with the smiting. And the germophobia." Raphael reached across Bob's plate and picked up a french fry. "But you did just kill a houseful of people. So, I'm just going to have to eat your fries."

"Fuck you. Oh, I forgot, you can't. Dad didn't give you that equipment." Bob stuck out his tongue at his not-un-brother, and felt, okay, better. It wasn't really in his nature to stay pissed. Brood. Life was too much fun.

Raphael salted the french fry in his hand and ate it. He said, "So, I'm curious, why did you help the Winchesters?"

"Maybe I have plans for them." Bob nodded and started to draw an undead Munch's Scream on his steak with ketchup and mustard.

"Hmm," said Raphael. He ate another fry. "These are pretty good."

Bob got up and grabbed all the ketchup bottles from the every table in the diner. Assembled them in an army of ketchup. Glared at Raphael from behind them. "Well, I could!"

Raphael smiled cheerfully around a mouthful of Bob's golden and delicious fries. He got and put the ketchup bottles back on the empty tables. He said, "That's important. Think positive." sat down and took another fry.

"Okay. Fine! I don't have evil world dominating plans!" Bob grabbed the fry out of Raphael's hand and ate his own damn fry. He said, "I had these great plans for some nice local evil. It was going to be awesome. Sierra Madre awesome. Crazy bitch." Bob ate a bite of steak. All ketchup and mustard and charred meat and wide open mouthed talking, "When they showed, up, I was just going to screw around with them, but," Bob swallowed his meat. "I wonder if I could get them into a three-way. That would be cool." He looked at Raphael, "So, since you're here, I'm guessing Heaven's got plans for them?"

"Not that I know of. Well, our Creator could. Does. What with the ineffable plan for everyone, but he hasn't told me. I just thought people could use a friendly face. Which he probably planned. Hmm." Raphael smiled up at the approaching waitress, "I'd like what he's having, medium rare, with a side of ranch. Thanks."

The waitress walked away kinda smiling and dazed.

Bob said, "Dude, turn down the angelic vibe. And stop eating my fries." and whacked Raphael's reaching hand with his fork.

Raphael leaned back in his chair. "Okay. I'd be nice if you turn down your evil."

"Yeah, like that's gunna happen." Bob said, "Although, no more plans. I was always better at just having a good time." He poured ketchup in a protective coating all over his fries and grinned at Raphael, "And I did have a very good time. I could show you." He popped a fry in his mouth. "I could be the guy.." He smeared the steak Screams face with a finger and then licked it. " I can be flexible. I could even be the girl." Bob shook his head and tossed shiny blond curls and suddenly, what with the ginormous breasts, the toga, damn indecent. "Wait, I forgot. Still no equipment."

Raphael rolled his eyes and handed Bob his jacket. Raphael said, "So, have you heard the one about the Thai monks and the Santa Fe punks?"

~~~~~~  
Kokopelli Motel – Vacancy  
Off through the new day's mist I run / Off from the new day's mist I have come  
I hunt /Therefore I am

Dean sat at the table of their hotel, too wired to crash. Fiddled with the EMF. This new transistor was going to rock. He said, "I'm out of ideas." He gentle snapped an into an out. "Her apartment's empty." Spliced the electrical feed. "She's not in the professor's office." Crimped a wire down. "No one's heard from her." A little tape. A little glue. Spun a tiny assed screw into place. "Cyndi could've skipped town?"

"Could be," said Sam." He sat on the bed looking through Dad's journal. He said, "You know Dean, this whole thing has got me thinking."

Oh, God no. Shoot me now. Dean said, "Want some breakfast?"

Sam opened his mouth. Closed it. Smiled and said, "Okay."

Thank God. Dean was starving.  
~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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